The Jacksonville Jaguars played the Carolina Panthers in Week 2 of the preseason. Following the game, I think it's fair to say that we've seen all we need to see from some members of the roster. Of the eight quarters played by the fringes of the franchise's depth chart, six of them were bad.
Now, we have to remember that every coaching staff around the league is going as vanilla as they can, but the players tasked with executing these bare-bones play calls are being evaluated as closely as they would be any other time of the year.
For tenured veterans like DeeJay Dallas, that's bad news after two days at the office where he was clearly outplayed by one of his peers in Jacksonville's running back room.
Against the New Orleans Saints, J'Mari Taylor snatched away the keys to the car and carried the ball 22 times. His spontaneous showcase as the team's feature back overshadowed Dallas' lackluster 11 touches for 32 yards.
Unfortunately, Dallas' competition against twelfth-year pro Ameer Abdullah went even worse, and his inability to beat out either of his teammates may have already decided his fate in Jacksonville before the team's first round of roster cuts begins.
DeeJay Dallas just fumbled away his chance to be a Jacksonville Jaguar in 2026
While working against the Carolina Panthers, Dallas had eight carries for 27 yards, one reception for 13 yards, and a fumble lost. These figures were objectively worse than the six rushes for 45 yards, three catches for 37 yards, and an absurd highlight run Abdullah was able to put up behind the same offensive line.
Some readers could defend Dallas' weak showing by saying that he was going up against the Panthers' starting defense and some of their best backups as well. Honestly, that argument's never held a lot of credibility with me because almost everyone who takes the field during the preseason played for an FBS school. More importantly, every single athlete who puts on a pair of cleats and a jersey with an NFL logo on it is definitely getting paid.
When it comes down to it, we're still talking about pro football here, and undrafted rookies like Joey Aguilar and Trebor Peña have found ways to make the most of their reps against whoever takes the field against them.
That being said, there aren't a lot of opportunities for Jacksonville's third-, fourth-, and fifth-string players to show the coaching staff what they can do while the starters are eating up all the reps during joint practices. As such, Liam Coen and James Gladstone will be forced to work with whatever the former Miami Hurricane has given them with the film he's already produced.
Is it truly over for No. 20?
With only one preseason game left, the time needed for Dallas to make a serious comeback has probably expired. As things stand right now, J'Mari Taylor and Ameer Abdullah would be the fourth and fifth running backs on the roster; there's no guarantee that the Jags will keep that many backs on the final 53-man roster to begin with.
I wish there were more nuance to Dallas' situation, but his current case highlights the less savory elements of the business of pro football. Gladstone and Coen's decision on the former Seattle Seahawk's immediate future could shock us in the end, but I think we all know where things are headed at this point.
For what it's worth, No. 20 won't be the only one turning in his playbook after this one. The depth pieces who are supposed to be elevating the floor of the Jaguars' roster have been quite disappointing this preseason, which could lead to some more hard conversations in the near future.
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